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Katrina evacuees unemployed
09/09/2006 11:53 - (SA)
Houston - More than 80% of
Hurricane Katrina evacuees surveyed in the Houston area are
unemployed one year after the storm forced them to flee New
Orleans, according to a study released by Rice University on
Friday.
Sixty-six percent of the 362 evacuees surveyed had full- or
part-time jobs before Hurricane Katrina battered the US Gulf
Coast on August 29, 2005, the study said.
The devastating hurricane caused massive damage along the
coast, killed 1 500 people and drove hundreds of thousands from
New Orleans.
Many of the unemployed told Rice professors Rick Wilson and
Robert Stein there were not enough jobs in Houston to support
the thousands of temporary residents. Others said a lack of
transportation made it difficult to find and keep a job in the
sprawling city.
Of those surveyed, 68.5% said they were likely or
very likely to stay in the Houston area because their
neighbourhoods were destroyed.
"This is a group that does not see their future in New
Orleans," Professors Rick Wilson and Robert Stein wrote in the
study.
"Even though they indicate they are homesick and miss the
neighbourhoods from which they came, they do not see anything
left in those neighbourhoods."
This is the third survey of evacuees done by Wilson and
Stein since September 2005. Most of the survey participants
were black and did not own their own homes, the study
said.
Estimates of the number of Katrina evacuees in Houston
vary, but last month, the Texas Commission on Health and Human
Services said 111 000 were living in the city. About 251 000
Katrina evacuees are scattered across the state, the commission
said.
- Reuters
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